by Lyra Evans
“Can’t,” Niko answered, running full tilt down a quieter street of more daytime shops. He heard more sirens coming from somewhere and turned abruptly to guide them in the opposite direction. “Too dangerous. Don’t want to lead the police to Starla. Or Coral.”
“But—” Cobalt began, but a high-pitched whistle and order to stop stole the words from him. Again, they ran. Niko could barely breathe, his lungs pierced with every breath, but he couldn’t stop either.
He slipped in between buildings where he could, taking the darker path whenever possible, avoiding areas he knew had cameras or bright lighting. And they ran and ran. Niko wasn’t sure how long. Maybe an hour. After a while, he wasn’t thinking about where he was going anymore; he just went. And only once he came upon the rusted old structure did he realize where his feet had taken him.
There was no one around here, and it didn’t surprise Niko. This area was sparsely populated and largely abandoned even during the day, but in the darkest part of the night, it seemed even more desolate than usual. Even the streetlamps—or rather streetlamp singular—flickered weakly, the surface of the pole covered in rust and grime. It still smelled of dust and old wood, despite the fact that most of what was left was metal and dirt.
Once he caught his breath, Niko stepped slowly up to the old structure, a strange kind of feeling taking him over. He wouldn’t call it nostalgia—why he should feel nostalgic for this place was beyond him—but it was something like that kind of longing. A familiarity, perhaps, whether good or bad. And a distance that only comes with age.
“Where are we?” Cobalt asked, shouldering the duffel Niko had unconsciously dropped when he was trying to breathe. Cobalt’s bright, crystal eyes glimmered in the occasional light of the lamp. There was no judgment there, at least not the detrimental kind. He looked on the area with curiosity mostly. But there was also the elevated distance that was unavoidable in an outsider. Niko tried to remember everyone was an outsider, really, but it still made it difficult to explain. Cobalt wouldn’t understand. Not the way Niko did.
“Some place I used to come,” Niko said, not sure he was willing to elaborate just yet.
“We should find a way to get back to Starla and Coral,” Cobalt said, accepting his answer for the time being.
Niko shook his head again. “We can’t,” he said. “It’s too risky. They’re safer without me there.” Part of him had known he wouldn’t be able to meet up with them again. It was part of why he’d brought some of their supplies with him in one of the duffels they took for the ruse. But apparently Cobalt hadn’t realized it.
Starla had taken Coral to a little motel on the outskirts of the central city. It was the kind of place people stayed when they needed discretion but also had no money to pay for it. A small, run-down business that should have died out decades earlier but for the ready cash of simple criminals. Starla had paid cash for the room for a few nights, using much of the rest of Niko’s emergency stash. She had suggested two rooms, but Niko had refused. One room had two beds. That was enough. For Starla and Coral, anyway.
“We have nowhere to stay,” Cobalt said, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. His sea-breeze scent suddenly overwhelmed Niko, and Niko wondered if Cobalt had more control over that than he let on. The freedom and pleasure of the smell called up memory after memory—and certain thoughts that were not memories at all, but longings. For something he didn’t think he could have anymore.
“Better to keep moving, anyway,” Niko said, testing the resilience of the old steel door. It still held relatively firm in the frame of the stooping structure, and Niko pushed it open slowly. He realized, with some effort, the door was still standing mostly due to heavy rusting. When it cracked, the door swung more wildly than Niko expected, and he had to catch himself so as not to fall over into the dirt. “We need to head into the jungle-forest as soon as possible, so we can camp there.”
Cobalt’s mouth became a hard line. “Without any idea of where Preston might be within it? Or even that he is in it?” he asked. “That could amount to suicide.”
Niko raised his eyebrows, moving further into the structure. “A bit dramatic,” he said, and Cobalt reluctantly followed him into the darkened building. “Starla can still help us. I can have her search for information from where she is. She can be the interim contact for Uri, too. But plausible deniability goes out the window if anyone catches her with me.”
Cobalt frowned visibly, and Niko shifted. He masked the discomfort by moving around the interior of the building. It was much as he remembered, though in even worse repair if possible. The ground was still mostly dirt with only patches of the old wood-board flooring left intact. Weeds and other plants sprouted up in the little patches of ground uncovered by roofing, and graffiti marked the walls all around. Old bottles and cans lay scattered around. A makeshift fire pit had been dug to one side, surrounded by discarded boxes and hunks of wood or stone to function as seating. Most of the trash was focused around that area.
“Coral hasn’t been in the Court long,” Cobalt said, finally getting to the kernel of his frustration. Niko felt the pang in his chest exactly where he expected to, though the expectation did little to diminish the pain. “Abandoning her to stay with a stranger while we’re wrapped up in this insane manhunt seems rather irresponsible of me.”
Niko shot him a sidelong look, rolling words around on his tongue. In the end, he turned back to the empty building in front of him, walking a path toward the back he’d walked a hundred times or more in the past.
“She seems more than capable on her own,” Niko said. “And Starla will see to it she’s safe. She said she’ll say Coral was a friend from Nimueh’s Court if it comes to it. Even had some cheap gemstone accessories to give her, just in case.”
“And should something happen to Starla?” Cobalt asked. Niko tensed. The whole point of not going back there was to protect Starla and Coral. “I have no wish it should happen, but Starla is already connected to you. Coral might get by as a stranger, unknown to the police. But if Starla is arrested, Coral has no money and no sense of the region.”
Niko’s expression was flat and emotionless, but something betrayed him to Cobalt, because when he met Cobalt’s gaze, the Selkie shut his eyes and sighed in a way that seemed pained.
Chewing on his words, Niko said, “You’re right. Best she has some kind of support. Best both of them do,” Niko said, turning away from Cobalt and continuing his slow trudge toward his goal. “You should go. Stay with them. I’m the only one putting them at risk right now, anyway.”
His chest was ice, his words cold as the snow-capped mountains in Connor’s Court. He used to be better at pushing people away, used to make it look so easy, so indifferent. But Cobalt had changed that, three months earlier, and Niko had half-hoped he could stop pretending not to care.
A hand grabbed his arm and spun him around, his back slamming into the wall of the structure. The sound echoed, the strike of a gong in an empty chamber, and Niko felt heat flush through him, just barely melting the ice in his chest. He looked into Cobalt’s smouldering eyes but said nothing.
“You wish me to go?” Cobalt asked, his voice even but full of a silent threat. Niko’s jaw tightened. They stared into each other for a long moment, and Niko felt himself growing hotter and warmer with every passing second. The rough metal wall burned into him, and his blood pumped fast.
Niko said nothing. Cobalt took the answer to mean whatever he wanted it to, and eventually let Niko go. But he stood, blocking Niko’s path and staring at him with that same intensity for longer than Niko could bear. Finally, Niko looked away, shoving sideways to get back to what he was after.
At the back corner of the building, the structure suffered significantly more destruction than the front. What had once been a second floor sloped down, broken, the walls buckled somewhat, until the second floor created a ramp from the first. There was no climbing up it, mind. Niko had tried, years ago. But beneath the slumped floor was a dark corner of t
he building. Foliage sprouted from strange places, and pieces of the structural components of the building stood at awkward angles. Chunks of recovered wood and boxes and sheets of broken corrugated metal seemed piled up haphazardly , blocking off access to the corner. But it wasn’t haphazard.
It looked much worse for the years of wear, but the piece of corrugated metal wedged into the space closest to where the second floor met the first was still in place. Niko struggled slightly to remove it, jiggling it with a carefully angled push and pull before it finally slid out. It had been meant to last, to be difficult to pull away. Every piece of the rubble wall was set that way, with as minimal magical intervention as possible. Even the untrained could sense overly magical places and things.
Sliding the metal aside, Niko opened up a small, dark entrance. There was no light beyond it to see what might have holed up in there, but Niko crouched down and began to crawl in regardless. Some part of his heart told him it would be safe. It always had been.
“Are you certain that’s wise?” Cobalt asked, reaching for Niko to stop him before he disappeared beneath the crumbling second floor. Niko looked up and tried to see it as Cobalt likely did. It was nothing but broken bits and rusting infrastructure. But it wasn’t.
“The support beams at this end of the collapse nestled themselves into a crossbeam. Won’t budge without some major explosive power,” Niko said, smacking the point in question. Cobalt likely couldn’t see it, but there wasn’t the slightest shift beneath Niko’s impact. “It’s been standing this long…”
Cobalt released him hesitantly, and Niko crawled fully into the little hole he’d exposed. It was tighter getting in now than it used to be, but the area beneath the remaining second floor was actually much roomier. Shuffling on his side to squeeze by the narrow opening, Niko managed to crawl on hands and knees to the section with taller ceiling. He got to his feet, waiting for Cobalt to either join him or not, and he took stock of the hideaway he’d once called his home.
The factory had been a textile plant, years and years ago. By the time Niko came across it, it had already gone out of business and been abandoned. There had been some kind of horrible fire or something that destroyed the place. Or so Niko had been told. There was little indication of fire damage anywhere, and when he’d searched it, he’d found bolts of fabric left behind, most of which seemed entirely useable.
So when he established the relative structural safety of this corner, he’d scavenged all the best fabrics and tools he could find to set himself up a little nest of sorts. A strange paisley fabric in khaki green and unpleasantly bright orange hung around all the walls, blocking both the sight of the rubbish wall and the sharper angles of the building materials he’d used. Yards of rough canvas were laid out on the ground to cover the dirt and cement foundation, making it slightly more pleasant. The canvas had been brown once, but now it was darker and stained from dirty footprints and various weather tracks. In the far corner was a thick layer of plush felt fabric and velvet that sat atop a large square of faux-leather. The felt and velvet were folded over again and again, filled with whatever cotton fluff he could find. It made up his bed, when he needed to use it. Folded atop that was a heavy wool piece that served as a blanket, though he sometimes used it as a pillow in the hotter months.
A broken sewing machine was stationed underneath the shorter part of the little room, atop an old crate. He’d tried to fix it, but it had been beyond him. So he’d taken the needle from it and attempted to use that to make a crude pillow. The only one he had ever managed to complete was sitting next to the machine, where Niko used to store it to keep it away from the danker edges of the room. It was a strange trapezoid shape, the outer fabric a thick cotton. He’d stuffed it with cotton balls and feathers and teased out pieces of wool. It was somewhat lumpy, but it served better than the floor.
Just when Niko thought Cobalt might have decided to leave after all, he heard the unmistakeable sound of a grown adult struggling to enter a child’s play area. If it had been a tight entry for Niko, it was even worse for Cobalt. He struggled and shimmied and slid as much as he could until finally he passed the narrowest section and managed to sit up, having shoved the duffels through ahead of himself. Niko reached for the wonky pillow, holding it gently as though it might shatter.
“What is this place?” Cobalt asked, finally managing to get to his feet at the highest point of the ceiling, which was very near the bed. He seemed somewhat in awe, but Niko wasn’t sure he was ready. He’d told no one about this place. Not his teachers at school, nor his cohorts at the academy, nor his first ever partner. Not the Captain, not Uriah, not even Starla. No one knew this place existed but Niko. And now Cobalt.
“My—secret place,” Niko said, caught on the reality he didn’t know what to call it. Other kids had treehouses and clubhouses and play rooms and who knew what else. Niko had never had the luxury of that. Instead, he had a secret bedroom away from where he lived. Where he could go when he needed to. But even the words ‘secret place’ were hard to speak. He wasn’t sure if it was shame or self-preservation. When he looked at Cobalt, he saw a spark of appreciation.
“You made all this?” Cobalt asked, looking around at the homey touches. He moved around and tinkered for a moment with the broken sewing machine, a small smile on his face. Niko felt a flare of pleasure. He’d worked hard on creating this space for himself. It was rather nice to have someone recognize the work. “It’s amazing. How old were you?” he asked, but as he did, his eye caught on something stashed behind the sewing machine. He reached for it and studied it, and Niko felt the flare of pleasure turn to grief. “Is this—” Cobalt began, holding the rough wood picture frame in hand. “Is this your mother?”
Niko wanted to snatch it from him, to take it and hide it away again. But something else in him overrode that urge. Something much warmer lifted and took control for once.
He reached out gently for it, and Cobalt willingly obliged. Once it was in his hands, Niko studied the face in the photo as if it was the first time in years, which it was. The woman in the picture was young, perhaps late twenties, and she was smiling the kind of smile that kept away the chill. Her eyes were a dazzling cornflower blue, and her hair, done up in soft curls and waves, was the same midnight blue as Niko’s. Around her neck was a delicate chain with an even more delicate heart pendant. It was tiny and fine, just a thin strip of silver wrought into the right shape, but it looked as elegant as the finest sapphires on her.
“Yes,” Niko said, brushing his thumb over the edge of the glass. A thick layer of grime came away. This was the only photo he had of his mother, and he’d left it here. “Her name was Thea.” He lingered in the memory and the warmth for a moment. He felt her hand in his hair, ruffling it, and her lips on his forehead, checking for a fever. He heard the deep curl of her laugh, surprisingly weighting considering her slight frame, and felt his head tilt at the sound of her calling his name. And then he let it go. Placing the frame back on the crate, he said, “She died when I was seven.”
Cobalt watched him move away toward the bed, vacantly feeling the fabric. “I’m so very sorry, Niko,” he said, his voice low and melodic. Niko felt the music of it in his chest, and instantly, the heavy pall of grief and loss lessened, lifting like a veil. “She was the one to make you cherry crumble for your birthday?”
It wasn’t really a question, but Niko answered it anyway. “Yes,” he said, remembering his surprise and alarm when Cobalt had produced such a dessert on his birthday during the auction case. He’d never told Cobalt it was his favourite, not even that it was his birthday. He was still uncertain how Cobalt could have guessed about the pie, but he thought it had something to do with the visions they both experienced upon meeting. Images of themselves locked together, hot and heavy and in the throes of ecstasy, or else entwined in glorious domesticity. Perhaps Cobalt saw himself baking Niko a crumble. The extent of Selkie abilities was still unknown. Which seemed to be a problem for many people.
Niko
lowered himself down onto the fabric layers he’d called a mattress. They were dry, thankfully, but there was a lingering scent of must, edging slightly on decay. It would do, he guessed, for one night. He set about arranging the bedding for two people of adult size while Cobalt examined other little details of his room. He reached into the duffel and pulled out a small flashlight to help him see better, but instead of revealing curious little tidbits about Niko’s past, it revealed something much larger.
“You seem to have some old dishes here,” Cobalt said. “And canned foods.” He turned to Niko, holding a long-expired can of kidney beans. “These are hardly traditional snack foods kids squirrel away.” Niko said nothing, eyeing him a moment before reaching for his duffel to pull out the evidence they’d collected. Cobalt took the bag from him, setting it aside. He crouched down on the ground in front of Niko, too close for Niko to ignore the concern in his eyes. He smelled of the ocean, and Niko wanted to disappear into it. “What did you use this place for?”
He asked the question though Niko was certain Cobalt had already figured out the answer. Niko’s jaw locked, and he struggled to open his mouth. A part of him wanted to lie, to make some excuse, but the greater part of him was proud of himself. And didn’t want to give his father any more credit than he was due.
“I stayed here most nights,” Niko answered finally. He stared Cobalt down, but the Selkie only dropped the can and pulled Niko into his arms. Niko was so shocked, he didn’t protest. Instead, he let himself sink into Cobalt’s embrace, his own arms freezing for a moment before he held Cobalt in return. He did not do hugging, but for a moment while in Cobalt’s arms, he wondered why.